Saturday, June 6, 2009

Where's wormy?

He's not too hard to find, really...

Our compost is so beautifully packed with gigantic nightcrawlers, it's wonderful. Today I got my last veggie planter put together. If this is successful, we'll probably branch out more next year; Adam was going to do some raised beds, but I fear the summer is slipping away from us...

For this container, I bought an 18 gallon Rubbermaid tub. First, I drilled a ton of 1/4" holes in the bottom and sides.

Then I put some river rock in the bottom...

Followed by cheap potting soil...

Then a half-and-half mix of potting soil and compost... And then the plants! Two more patio tomatoes and a few very small eggplant starters. I sort of figure that you can do each of these plants in 5 gallon containers or less, so this should sustain 3 or 4 plants at least. We'll see. I fertilized and treated for fungus and slugs, and voila!

Who knows. That sad wilty one in the back already looks better, so I'm hopeful.

I also mowed and picked up more paint samples for the house painting. We're feeling like painting the house a brick color is the way to go...What do you think? A number of houses in our neighborhood are painted "red brick" and you can't tell until you're standing right next to them. I don't even need it to be super convincing-- just something a little more appropriate to the house, maybe? Thankfully, the POs didn't paint the chimney so we have something to match the paint to. It's such a major change. I'm having a bit of a hard time with it. But the insurance settlement gave us money to repaint, and part of that money is in escrow until we actually do the job, so we figure now's the time.

1 comment:

I think painting it red brick is definitely a good way to go. I've seen that on a lot of houses around here, too... and you are right; you can hardly tell!

If you want to be even MORE adventurous, you could be like our neighbor, who painted his brick house brick red, and then carefully painted in every mortar line. We didn't know it was painted for months. (He painted because it was essentially unsalvagable unpainted... at least that's what he told us).

That compost looks gorgeous! Mine hasn't been doing so well, since I managed to lay a bunch of steel siding between the back door and the pile. I'm working on our raised beds now, though!